Month: May 2010

Bruce Bochy and Tim Lincecum met this morning, a day after Lincecum’s third straight non-great outing last night.

Makes sense, since Lincecum is only the most important player in the franchise, by a scale of about 100.

The result? Lincecum didn’t talk before the game–though he looked fine walking through the clubhouse afterwards–but Bochy said he just wanted to check on his star pitcher and said that Lincecum’s fine.

Maybe putting a little too much pressure on himself given his super-high standards, but overall, fine.

The transcript from Bochy’s pre-game gaggle… mostly on Lincecum, and a little on Buster Posey at the end…

—-BRUCE BOCHY, pre-game gaggle/

-Q: You’ve had a night and this morning since Lincecum’s outing last night. Everything check out physically? Is there anything wrong at all?

-BOCHY: No, no. I talked to Timmy. Basically, he’s fine.

Like everybody in this game you’re going to have your hiccups. And Timmy, he’s a little hard on himself, I think, at times. A little frustrated.

This guy has set the bar so high that he’s tough on himself when he doesn’t pitch like he’s accustomed to.

* In a not-terrible development (for me), my fine digital tape recorder went a little haywire with the fuzz-static today, which meant I had little desire to go through the audio of group interviews with Nabokov, Boyle, Marleau, Heatley, Pavelski and others at Sharks wrap-up day…

Let’s go straight to Doug Wilson’s season obit/look-ahead on the Sharks’ run to the Western Conference Finals… and limp out.

(Though that’s not how Wilson described it.)

He spoke to everybody in the locker room at first, then went upstairs for a longer Q & A session with a handful of print reporters.

The main transcription (buzz-static edited out) is from that session, with a start out from Wilson’s general session.

Before we get to that, some highlights…

* Wilson was, no surprise, careful not to tip his hand about his plans or expectations for the Sharks’ slew of free agents, especially the big UFAs–Patrick Marleau and Evgeni Nabokov.

But Wilson also made it clear that, with the way the NHL salary system is constructed, the Sharks will not go into this expecting to keep everybody.

In the longer session, Wilson made repeated references to Chicago’s upcoming salary-cap problems, and said that Todd McLellan, too, saw from his Detroit days that talented teams often lose players in the salary crunch.

* Nabokov wasn’t thrilled with questions that he interpreted as already ruling him out of San Jose, but to be fair, he wanted to be careful, too.

First big question: If Larry Ellison really wants to own the Warriors, would he possibly speed up and ramp up his bidding process in order to seal a deal before the June 24 draft and following movement period?

Very doubtful. It’s just not tremendous business practice–and not Ellison’s style at all–to get impatient in a drawn-out negotiation situation.

In fact, one source with deep sports-ownership ties said today that it’s presumed that Ellison will eventually buy the Warriors… but it will have to be almost totally on his terms.

Which means it could take a long time, and it won’t be done with Ellison’s pocketbook on a platter for Chris Cohan’s amusement.

Of course, several other high-level sources said that you can’t assume anything in this process and that it’s far from an inevitability that Ellison ends up buying.

Summary: There’s very little chance this sale will be close to complete by late-June.

That means Larry Riley will basically be flying blind in his final days running the hoop operation and who knows what Don Nelson will be doing.

Also: The more we know about Cohan’s desire for a $400M+ offer and the apparent lack of such a bid so far, the more obvious it seems that this thing is likely to last into August.

So Round 2 of the bidding process is scheduled to start soon–when auctioneer Sal Galatioto and Cohan winnow the slate down to 2, 3 or 4 and the process goes into heavy detail and negotiation.

-Tomorrow is pack-up and meet-the-media day at Sharkville and they will all be relieved to know that today was the first in many that I woke up with a clear head and an appetite for anything other than tomato soup.

I’ll be out there tomorrow with Purdy, Pollak, Emmons and the rest. We’re all curious to see if Doug Wilson will talk and, if he does, how directly he’ll address the payroll and age issues.

Does he have the desire or inclination to make some major changes to re-tool for another four- or five-year big run? (If you can count what they just had as a “big” run–hey, the Sharks just had their glory days!)

—–the column/

What an odd moment in the history of the Sharks’ march to almost greatness:

This time they finally met reasonable playoff expectations (huzzah!), but they also reached the end of the line for their quixotic run as the NHL’s most promising team.

Because, given the time, place and the Sharks’ long buildup to this moment, this was the Sharks’ best shot at a Stanley Cup title.

* Pollak and Purdy are on site in Chicago and will, as always, be providing the best insight and reporting. So I won’t go too deep into this. Still have a few quick thoughts on the Sharks’ 4-2 loss to the Blackhawks to finish up a 4-game sweep…

–It was a good playoff performance by the Sharks, certainly measured against the recent past, with true moments to be savored for the fans and organization.

But it’s also fair to say that anything short of a Stanley Cup finals berth has to be considered a disappointment for a team that has had this much core talent for this amount of time.

I don’t really buy Todd McLellan’s post-series line of thinking, that Chicago got to the Western Conference Finals and lost, learned how to win, and that’s what the Sharks can bring into next year.

Chicago had 20-somethings leading the way last year, and this year. The Blackhawks needed to learn–it was practically the first postseason experience for many of their best players.

The Sharks aren’t young. And their core has been through enough of these playoff losses… you think they have to learn any more that losing is bad and winning is better?

-I don’t know if that was Patrick Marleau’s final game as a Shark, but from the feedback I’m already getting, it’s safe to say most Sharks fans will be very upset if the team lets him walk as an unrestricted free agent this summer.

* Whew, whatever it was that hit me the last few days–some belligerent flu/fever/cold/cough super-hybrid–thank goodness it is mostly passed, though all obvious errors in this item may of course be attributed to the lingering symptoms. I considered trying to post an item during the heights of the chill-dizzy experience, but thought much, much better of it. And the 15 hours of sleep per day was quite convincing, too.

-Let’s try to play a little weekend catch-up, shall we?

1–They’ve put the decisions off long enough, because Brian Sabean and Bruce Bochy like putting off decisions. They are status quo guys.

They resist change. They want everybody to just be patient, things will be fine.

But the time for major decisions has come. And what the Giants GM and manager decide in the next few days and weeks, I believe, will have a large effect on whether they’re around starting in 2011.

Now, I know that’s not a comfortable topic in some status-quo quarters of the Bay Area.

That’s fine. Status quo has its merits.

But not when the Giants have, once again, put together a line-up that is not very athletic, not very disciplined, not very powerful and is oft-injured while being not very athletic or disciplined or powerful.

Most importantly, they’re wasting too many precious days of Tim Lincecum and Matt Cain’s prime years.

It’s not fine when Buster Posey is sitting there in triple-A–not as a savior, but at least as an alternative, a live bat, an interesting option beyond the normal 0-for-4s scattered throughout the Giants order.